A Lifelong Affair with Odonates

By Neha Mujumdar

 

Dragonflies and damselflies, collectively known as odonates, embody elegance, beauty, resilience, and strength. Watching these creatures is like meditation — at least for me! While charismatic animals like mammals and birds often steal the spotlight, lesser-known insects like odonates offer a world of wonder all of their own. Insects dominate all other animal groups, and a closer look around your home will reveal their astonishing diversity. Among them, odonates stand out, showcasing mastery in aerodynamics and fierce predatory skills. Having evolved even before the time of dinosaurs, they are true ambassadors of adaptation, enduring the test of time with remarkable success.

 

What fascinated me most about odonates was their unique breeding behaviour. Damselflies, with their slender bodies compared to dragonflies, exhibit distinct behaviours during egg-laying. While dragonflies typically release their eggs by briefly touching the water’s surface, damselflies engage in a more complex ritual. Male damselflies often accompany and guide females to the egg-laying site, holding on to their necks. The females then land on aquatic plants and insert their eggs into submerged plant tissues using a sharp ovipositor. This behaviour, known as “underwater oviposition”, is typical of damselflies. In some cases, females even submerge themselves completely while laying eggs. Witnessing this fascinating behaviour left me in awe of these tiny creatures.

 

My curiosity to explore about their breeding behaviour further led me to various places. One unforgettable experience occurred during a visit to Sindhudurg, Maharashtra. The northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra and the lowlands of Konkan are a treasure trove of wildlife, with some species of plants, reptiles, and amphibians endemic to the region. While exploring the freshwater habitats, such as seasonal streams, I encountered a pair of damselflies on a palm tree at my eye level. The stream had shallow water, vegetation on both sides, and a thick canopy of trees overhead. I spotted this pair on a Pandanus palm, known locally as ‘kewda’. The male, a small blackish body with faint blue eyes and black lines, was still in tandem with the brownish female – a species named Elattoneura tetrica. At first, I thought they were engaged in a mating ritual, but a closer look revealed they were laying eggs.

 

To my surprise, the female damselfly was laying eggs on a plant well above the water, not beneath it. I watched in amazement as the pair continued this process for at least 25 minutes. I had never seen anything like it before. My mind raced with thoughts about what I was witnessing and whether I had ever read about egg-laying above water. Given that odonates require freshwater for their development from egg to winged adult, this behaviour was unusual. I photographed the pair, their habitat, and the plant to investigate further. Upon reading some research articles, I found that  this behaviour has evolved in some damselflies to protect their eggs from drought or parasitism in the water. Damselflies may select plants with soft wood for egg-laying, and when the larvae hatch, they instinctively fall into the water below to continue growing.

 

I discovered that this might be one of the very few observations in India of oviposition outside water. There are instances where some damselfly species in the Himalaya lay eggs on moss-covered rocks near cold streams. Out of eight species of genus Elattoneura, five are endemic to India and four of those are found in peninsular region. Elattoneura tetrica is an endemic species to the Western Ghats of India, yet we have very little information on its habitat. This random observation turned out to be a significant and memorable experience.  It is this curiosity and these encounters that make my observations fulfilling. I am grateful to contribute valuable information about these lesser-known, yet equally beautiful insects.

 ■ Neha Mujumdar Scientist (Entomology) in the Conservation Department at BNHS, studies the biology of butterflies and odonate.